Auld Licht Idylls

Auld Licht Idylls, by J. M. Barrie

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Title: Auld Licht Idylls
Author: J. M. Barrie

Release Date: March 27, 2007 [eBook #20918]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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LICHT IDYLLS***
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Transcriber's note:
The volume from which this e-book was created contained two books,
Auld Licht Idylls and Better Dead. The Introduction discusses both.

The Novels, Tales and Sketches of J. M. Barrie
AULD LICHT IDYLLS

[Frontispiece: Photograph of J. M. Barrie]

Published in New York by Charles Scribner's Sons 1896
Author's Edition Copyright, 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

TO
FREDERICK GREENWOOD

INTRODUCTION
This is the only American edition of my books produced with my
sanction, and I have special reasons for thanking Messrs. Scribner for
its publication; they let it be seen, by this edition, what are my books,
for I know not how many volumes purporting to be by me, are in
circulation in America which are no books of mine. I have seen several
of these, bearing such titles as "Two of Them," "An Auld Licht
Manse," "A Tillyloss Scandal," and some of them announce themselves
as author's editions, or published by arrangement with the author. They
consist of scraps collected and published without my knowledge, and I
entirely disown them. I have written no books save those that appear in

this edition.
I am asked to write a few lines on the front page of each of these
volumes, to say something, as I take it, about how they came into being.
Well, they were written mainly to please one woman who is now dead,
but as I am writing a little book about my mother I shall say no more of
her here.
Many of the chapters in "Auld Licht Idylls" first appeared in a different
form in the St. James's Gazette, and there is little doubt that they would
never have appeared anywhere but for the encouragement given to me
by the editor of that paper. It was pressure from him that induced me to
write a second "Idyll" and a third after I thought the first completed the
picture, he set me thinking seriously of these people, and though he
knew nothing of them himself, may be said to have led me back to
them. It seems odd, and yet I am not the first nor the fiftieth who has
left Thrums at sunrise to seek the life-work that was all the time
awaiting him at home. And we seldom sally forth a second time. I had
always meant to be a novelist, but London, I thought, was the quarry.
For long I had an uneasy feeling that no one save the editor read my
contributions, for I was leading a lonely life in London, and not another
editor could I find in the land willing to print the Scotch dialect. The
magazines, Scotch and English, would have nothing to say to me--I
think I tried them all with "The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell," but it
never found shelter until it got within book-covers. In time, however, I
found another paper, the British Weekly, with an editor as bold as my
first (or shall we say he suffered from the same infirmity?). He revived
my drooping hopes, and I was again able to turn to the only kind of
literary work I now seemed to have much interest in. He let me sign my
articles, which was a big step for me and led to my having requests for
work from elsewhere, but always the invitations said "not Scotch--the
public will not read dialect." By this time I had put together from these
two sources and from my drawerful of rejected stories this book of
"Auld Licht Idylls," and in its collected form it again went the rounds. I
offered it to certain firms as a gift, but they would not have it even at
that. And then, on a day came actually an offer for it from Messrs.

Hodder and Stoughton. For this, and for many another kindness, I had
the editor of the British Weekly to thank. Thus the book was published
at last, and as for Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton I simply dare not say
what a generous firm I found them, lest it